Backyard in Progress

...’ll remove the bar code from that pipe! We plan on planting this area with native plants in the fall. Laramee and his crew also hauled up some rock to better define the paths in our yard that lead to the bees and the chicken coop. Laramee also proposed something else we never would have thought of: 12-volt lighting. He placed the lights sparingly along the paths in our backyard. For the sake of wildlife, I don’t believe in having outdoor lighting...

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Of paper wasps and scrub jays

...honey bee from a yellow jacket from a wasp–and we won’t even start on the native bees. Yet it pays to be able to do so, because each is quite different, and we can interact peaceably with all of them if we know their ways. Paper wasps, also called umbrella wasps, are those guys who build smallish, open celled nests in protected places, often the eaves of your house. Wasp stings are quite painful, but few people know that these wasps rarely attack...

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Picture Sundays: Agave Roast

...he Malki Museum on the Morongo Reservation to sample a large assortment of Native American foods as well as celebrate the end of a agave harvest and roast. I’ll nudge Mrs. Homegrown to blog about it, but let’s just go over a few of the delicious items on this plate: agave, yucca, beavertail cactus, chola buds, two forms of acorn mush, venison, rabbit stew, fry bread and a salad with a white sage dressing. I didn’t get to the fried crickets in time...

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Reforming City Codes

...ance. Put together a group of landscape architects, gardening enthusiasts, native plant experts and come up with a guidebook rather than a list of rules. Ultimately, a human being is going to have to make a judgement call on whether something is a nuisance. My error with yesterday’s blog post was pointing a finger, rather than seeing our communities as as system. That, and blogging while quaffing a beer–how ironic that “DRBREW” would point out my...

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Saturday Tweets: From Archery to Jaywalking

...kweed (Asclepias curassavica) linked to monarch butterfly parasites. Plant native!: http://t.co/XLYxhP6OC8 — Root Simple (@rootsimple) January 18, 2015 Here’s a review I’ve written for the @LRB of new books on climate change by @NaomiAKlein and @climategeorge: http://t.co/4fEiHSUWXX — Paul Kingsnorth (@paulkingsnorth) October 17, 2014 How to ignite a flame using gum wrap and a battery pic.twitter.com/MFrUBVXIg8 — Fascinating Videos (@FascinatingVi...

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